


When I Restrain My Breath

by Meridians_of_Madness



Series: The Deaths of Princes [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Biting, Breathplay, Choking, Competitive Murder, M/M, Poisoning, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meridians_of_Madness/pseuds/Meridians_of_Madness
Summary: The regular competitive murder keeps Heaven and Hell off their backs, and  after a peaceful few years in Larissa, Aziraphale and Crowley realize it's time for the games to begin again.-Likely won't make much sense without reading "Too Good and Fair for Death."
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: The Deaths of Princes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847338
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55
Collections: IK Shenanigans





	When I Restrain My Breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gray_Days](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Days/gifts).



_Greece, 1933_

“Well, we should probably get on with it,” Aziraphale said with a sigh, setting his empty glass on the small table by his chair. “It's hardly going to get any easier if we wait.”

Crowley crumpled down into his own chair with a groan, one leg thrown over one of the chair's arms, head leaned back.

“Augh, do we _have_ to? What a way to end a perfectly good evening!”

“I'm afraid we do, my own,” Aziraphale said with soft regret. “We've been skating by for a while now, and we really ought not get sloppy. Heaven does notice these things, you know.”

“And Hell does too,” Crowley said with a sigh. “You're probably right.”

The small cottage overlooking Larissa had gotten surprisingly homey in just a few years. There was a cabinet of books for Aziraphale, a small melon garden in the back for Crowley, and it hardly hurt that they were in the best place to get as much Naoussa red as they liked, a wine that had been a favorite for oh, ages now.

“Seems a bit of a waste is all,” Crowley found himself saying. “I just got those little muskmelons in. You're expecting a package from Athens. Sort of just interrupting everything, isn't it?”

“That's what death does, dear boy,” Aziraphale said with just a bit of satisfaction, and Crowley glared at him.

“You don't mind at all, do you? If you were getting tired of me, it was too bad of you not to say so, angel.”

Aziraphale made a disapproving sound, shaking his head.

“Oh Crowley, you know I'm sorry to see it go, and I know you always get a little brattish at the end. Won't you come here, darling?”

Crowley hissed resentfully, but he came, because Aziraphale was right in all the particulars. They were coming dangerously close to overstaying this one, and he _was_ always out of sorts at the end. Aziraphale, who had trouble saying goodbye to old buttons, was usually calm when the time came, and Crowley, who could charge into whole new branches of science with the forward motion of a locomotive, was the one who hung back, fretful, reluctant and yes, maybe a little brattish.

He came to straddle Aziraphale's lap, leaning into the bulk of him, taking in the smell of his sun-dried clothes and the faint hint of his cologne.

“This was a good one, yeah?” he asked softly, and Aziraphale stroked his hair, kissing his cheek gently.

“The best yet, sweetheart, but not the best we'll ever have.”

“Right,” Crowley said, sitting up straight and knuckling a few stray tears from his eyes. “Who's turn is it to- urghk!”

His train of thought, his words, and his breath was all cut off at once when Aziraphale's strong hands came up and circled his throat, squeezing hard enough that there would be bruising if he was still going to be around to care about such a thing.

Crowley gasped for air, and Aziraphale's hands loosened enough to give him just enough breath to cough and choke.

“Oh _bastard_ angel!” he cried, and Aziraphale's hands were back, closing off his windpipe with calm inexorable force. There was a slight and ferocious smile on the angel's face, and Crowley's heart somehow beat even faster, even harder.

“Dreadfully sorry, dear boy,” Aziraphale said apologetically, “but you did have the last three, and it should only have been two after that naughty little trick you pulled in Budapest. That was _cheating.”_

“Wasn't!” Crowley yelped too loudly as Aziraphale's hands loosened and then cut off his air again. The volume of his own voice caught him by surprise, took breath he should have saved, and he clawed at Aziraphale's arms, red blood welling up through the white shirtsleeves under his nails.

“Oh, but it was,” Aziraphale said calmly, giving Crowley a gentle shake. It felt as if the entire world shook, and his head spun. To steady himself, he had to hang on to Aziraphale's wrists instead of scrabbling at them, and Aziraphale chuckled.

“It _was,_ darling, so very bad of you, and you put me behind on Gabriel's silly little leader-board. They were beginning to ask questions. They were beginning to _wonder,_ and we can't have that, can we?”

His hands loosened enough that Crowley could take a heavy gasp for breath, flashes of color blurring his vision and his throat sore.

“I wasn't cheating,” he said stubbornly. “Clubbed you from behind fair and square.”

Then Aziraphale's hands were back, but this time instead of just cutting off his oxygen, Aziraphale brought him close, their lips brushing, Aziraphale's breath as light and easy as his own was labored.

“Well, anyway, it's my turn,” Aziraphale purred. “It can be your turn next. Shall I meet you in London, my darling? We've not been in the smoke in a while.”

“No one … calls it that … anymore,” Crowley wheezed. His vision was blacking out, the edges and then, more disastrously, the center. His hands had fallen down to his sides, and he was vaguely aware that his cock was hard, his skin clammy and burning at the same time. He was growing heavier in Aziraphale's grasp, but the angel held him up as easily as he would a rag doll.

He sagged in Aziraphale's arms, eyes closing, and breath still, and Aziraphale's hands loosened, letting Crowley's limp body slump forward.

“Precious. Precious boy, mine and always will be, just mine- aaahh!”

It was the work of a split second to turn his head and bury his fangs in Aziraphale's soft throat. They slid in as if he were made to kill angels like that, and he dug his his fingers into Aziraphale's shoulders, forcing as much venom into Aziraphale's bloodstream as he could, fast and hard and utterly merciless.

If he wanted to, he could take his time with this. He could make it sweet, make it easy, but _cheaters_ didn't have to make anything easy, did they? Oh no, he was a brat and a cheater (and maybe also a precious boy), and he could do precisely as he pleased, and what he _pleased_ was to pump a heady cocktail of hemotoxin and neurotoxin directly into Aziraphale's bloodstream.

Crowley held on tight and tighter as the blood in Aziraphale's veins turned thin and dull, as the flesh it touched began a painful rot and as his nervous system turned traitor, sending his limbs first limp and then rigid. Aziraphale shook, muted as his throat seized, and his blue eyes rolled up to stare at Crowley accusingly.

“Oh, don't look at me like that, angel, not after what you pulled,” Crowley said a little giddily. How long _had_ it been since he had bitten him, had him this helpless and this outraged? They were going to have some energetic rounds coming up, he could tell.

“Tell you what, I'll let you have the next four, all right? Isn't that generous of me? Aren't I sweet?”

Aziraphale's hand landed on Crowley's hip, a last remembered strength grabbing at him, and then it fell away as a wheezing breath squeezed between his lips. His lungs were failing, and soon enough, the other organs would follow. His heart would be the last to go, because after all, Crowley was a romantic.

“I'll have the books sent on to London,” Crowley promised, dropping a tender kiss on Aziraphale's sweating brow. “And I'll send the package from Athens on as well, I know how long you've been waiting on it. Of course I'll send your precious case of toys from under the bed to the usual address. Been a while since you've got them out, and do you know, angel, I have begun to miss them after all our time rusticating in the country ...”

He curled up smug as a cat on Aziraphale's lap, letting the stars turn overhead and the earth turn below. He talked to him, and kissed him, and teased him and when Aziraphale's finally took a rattling breath an hour before dawn, Crowley gave him one last hug and stood up with a languid stretch.

Oh, the angel was going to be _angry_ when he returned.

Oh, this was going to be _fun._

**Author's Note:**

> Congrats on doing the thing, Gray!


End file.
